Poor weather delays return of astronauts
The return to earth of two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut from the International Space Station was delayed on Friday due to harsh conditions at the Kazakhstan landing site, the Russian space agency said.
The return was postponed until Saturday due to a snow storm and icy conditions which would hamper rescue helicopters deployed at such Soyuz landings.
“Due to the bad weather conditions in the Soyuz capsule landing zone, it has been decided to postpone the landing until March 16,” the Roscosmos agency said on its website.
Russians Oleg Novitskiy, Evgeny Tarelkin and their US colleague Kevin Ford were originally due to land on the Kazakhstan steppes in the early hours of Friday morning.
***
FDA studying cancer risk of diabetes drugs
Washington: The US Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it was reviewing results of unpublished studies hinting at higher risks of ulcers and pancreatic cancer for users of certain anti-diabetes drugs.
The FDA said pancreatic tissue samples taken from a small number of patients who died had revealed inflammation and cellular changes that often precede cancer. The samples were taken from deceased diabetics who had used medicines that mimic incretin hormones that the body produces naturally to stimulate the release of insulin in response to a meal.
The FDA stressed it had not reached any firm conclusions from the findings of the study, adding that it had requested further information such as the methodology used so it could further analyse the potential toxicity of the anti-diabetes drugs known as incretin mimetics.
— AFP
Post new comment